Some people just never learn. For decades, porn purveyor Perfect 10 has been fighting a losing battle to deputize service providers to police potentially infringing uses of its works. Indeed, at this point Perfect 10 spends far more time on litigation than creation. But court after court has rejected those efforts. In fact, Perfect 10's main achievement in the courts has been to inadvertently make good copyright law. For example, its litigation led to key decisions ruling that an image search engine was fair use and confirming that rightsholders must follow DMCA Section 512's clear rules for takedown notices.

At stake in Apple's fight against government orders to break open locked iPhones could be the legal authorization for “virtually limitless” surveillance under the Internet of Things, according to a federal judge's order rejecting a government request in a New York drug case yesterday. Midway through his lengthy opinion, Magistrate Judge James Orenstein made that point clear as he dismantled the staggering government claim that Apple's software licensing arrangement was proof that the company was “sufficiently close” to consumer devices that it could be compelled to unlock them.

Copyright Bots Aren’t Always Bad, But They Shouldn’t Be in Charge

In 2007, Google built Content ID, a technology that lets rightsholders submit large databases of video and audio fingerprints and have YouTube continually scan new uploads for potential matches to those fingerprints. Since then, a handful of other user-generated content platforms have implemented copyright bots of their own that scan uploads for potential matches.

The Proposal Is Unfair to Both Users and Media Platforms

There’s a debate happening right now over copyright bots, programs that social media websites use to scan users’ uploads for potential copyright infringement. A few powerful lobbyists want copyright law to require platforms that host third-party content to employ copyright bots, and require them to be stricter about what they take down. Big content companies call this nebulous proposal “notice-and-stay-down,” but it would really keep all users down, not just alleged infringers. In the process, it could give major content platforms like YouTube and Facebook an unfair advantage over competitors and startups (as if they needed any more advantages). “Notice-and-stay-down” is really “filter-everything.”